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DA Investigators Nab SoCal Suspect Connected to International Scams

Monday, October 31, 2016

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District Attorney Investigators helped take down a Southern California suspect who was part of a transnational criminal organization that scammed victims out of hundreds of millions of dollars, including a local woman who was a victim in a “grandma scam” two years ago. [TWEET THIS]

The Justice Department announced its arrest of 56 defendants las week, including 20 who were arrested in the U.S., along with 32 others and five call centers in India. The defendants used information obtained from data brokers and other sources. Call center operators would contact potential victims and impersonate officials from the IRS or Immigrations and threaten them with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did no pay taxes or penalties to the government.

If the victims agreed to pay, the call centers used a network of U.S.-based co-conspirators to liquidate and launder the extorted funds as quickly as possible by purchasing prepaid debit cards or through wire transfers. One of those co-conspirators operated in Southern California, and targeted elderly victims in San Diego.

One of the San Diego victims, 86-year-old Beth Baker, fell victim to this international ring of scam artists two years ago. Instead of the IRS scam, the fraudsters used the well-known ‘grandma scam.’ She received a phone call from someone claiming to be with the U.S. Embassy in Peru. The caller said her grandson had been arrested in connection with a car accident and he needed bail money. He told her to purchase pre-paid money cards – Green Dot cards – and to provide him with the numbers on the card, essentially transferring the money to him. Within one week, Ms. Baker had given the scammer more than $65,000, depleting her savings account. When she went to her bank to try to get a loan to send even more money, a banker realized Ms. Baker was being scammed and alerted her son, Jim. See the video story, here. [TWEET THIS]

District Attorney Investigators in the DA’s Elder Abuse Unit have been investigating Ms. Baker’s case for nearly two years. Through numerous bank search warrants and analysis of records, Investigator Paul Holman traced Ms. Baker’s money through the system, which led to the identification of an Indian national living in Corona, Calif., as a person who had laundered much of the money stolen from Ms. Baker.

Investigator Holman, along with DA Investigator Barbara Shakowski, coordinated his investigation with the Department of Homeland Security and eventually Dilip-kuma Patel was identified as a significant money launderer for the Transnational Criminal Organization operating phone scams from a call center in India. A search of Patel’s home turned up a bank of documents, computers and cell phones, indicating he laundered more than $4.2 million dollars for the Indian-based crime network in just one year. He was one of the people indicted by the Department of Justice last week.

“I want to commend our District Attorney Investigators, especially Mr. Holman, for their excellent work and outstanding coordination with federal authorities,” DA Dumanis said. “They followed the money and were determined to stop the criminals who were targeting elderly victims in San Diego. Scam artists operating outside the U.S. aren’t easy to catch. But times are changing and these latest arrests are proof that law enforcement isn’t going to let the scammers get away with it. Our DA investigators along with our Elder Abuse Unit played a vital role in hunting down and dismantling this web of thieves.”